The effect of source credibility and similarity to participants on susceptibility to misinformation

Abstract

Previous research exploring misinformation has established that source credibility and source similarity to the information recipient are factors that can increase a source’s ability to mislead someone (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994; Traberg and van der Linden, 2022). The purpose of the present study is to investigate how people judge the veracity of factual information and misinformation coming from sources varying in these qualities. The hypotheses were: (1) misinformation from high-credibility sources will be most endorsed; (2) misinformation from similar sources will be more endorsed than from dissimilar sources; and (3) factual information from low-credibility, dissimilar sources will be dismissed. Participants (N = 93) were recruited from a small undergraduate university. They viewed and rated the perceived truthfulness of 40 fabricated Instagram posts, including sixteen posts related to sexual violence whose sources varied in ideology (feminist versus non-feminist) and credibility (high versus low credibility). Participants completed a measure of feminist attitudes and were classified as being high-feminist or low-feminist. Results indicated participants generally endorsed misinformation more from high-credibility sources, and that both high- and low-feminist participants preferred similar sources, being generally more willing to endorse misinformation from ideologically similar sources. However, in an unexpected finding, participants endorsed misinformation from non-feminist, low-credibility sources more than other sources, even those participants with a high degree of feminist attitudes. Limitations and future considerations are discussed.